


gentling of painful spines

by an_aphorism



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Men Crying, Scars, The Arena, Trauma, hard angst, shiro whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_aphorism/pseuds/an_aphorism
Summary: The thing was, if this thing with Keith moved forward, at some point Shiro would have to take off his shirt. He would have to and then Keith would see—
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 239





	gentling of painful spines

**Author's Note:**

> **CONTENT WARNING-- Herein Shiro makes an active choice not to heal wounds given to him in the Arena as a form of self harm. It is hard angst, there is mentions of blood, shame, guilt, and trauma. Seriously I'm not kidding, if this is sensitive content for you, skip this one.**
> 
> Also, it has a happy but melancholy ending, so be warned.

It wasn’t until he kissed Keith that Shiro thought about it. It just hadn’t been… relevant. There had been so much happening, so much life or death.

But Shiro was finding now that in some ways peacetime was harder. All the skeletons he’d compartmentalized came spilling out at the smallest provocation.

Like the kiss.

It had only been a kiss, a handful of kisses, but Shiro laid in bed that night and felt… afraid.

The Arena had not been kind to him. It had been the very start of it, but it had been a hard start. Shiro turned over in bed, arm curling around himself. His sleep shirt was thin, worn fabric, and through it he could feel the raised ridge of a scar. He traced it idly until it bumped into another.

The thing was, if this thing with Keith moved forward, at some point Shiro would have to take off his shirt. He would have to and then Keith would see—

And it was something he wanted even. Deep down. Thinking of it now, he wanted and feared it with equal fervor. He wanted Keith to touch him, to see him and think… it was okay.

But the shame was difficult to swallow. They were all scarred from the war, but the Arena had been different.

Shiro turned back over to stare at the black ceiling. The scars were healed over now as much as they would ever be, and yet he could still feel them, red hot. In the Arena they’d offered him healing afterwards, and for the first few times Shiro had done it. The salve had knit his skin back together, perfect and unblemished.

Shiro had hated it.

He’d killed to live, and standing before the mirror there he’d looked untouched. It had hurt so much inside him, what he’d done, and he couldn’t stand it.

After those first few times he started rejecting the salve. He’d still used the healing pod to be in prime shape for the next fight, but the scars had healed then just as his natural body would, puckered and discolored. The nerves on the deeper ones often went funny, and would tingle or itch as he laid in his cell at night.

But when Shiro looked in the mirror and saw them, he saw the physical manifestation of the pain. It had felt right.

So he’d done that for his time in the Arena. He’d taken the scars, letting them ruin a body he’d once been so proud of. There was nothing to be proud of there, and he wanted to feel that in his very own skin.

Toward the end he’d even started to go to his cell bloodied. The cuts would burn deep as he laid down on them. They’d pulse and burn, sticking to the sheets. He’d been numb inside to the horrors of the Arena by then, but the pain in his skin had been like a reminder that he was still alive.

It had felt necessary then, but now…

Now it was hard to look at. Hard to see these things etched into his skin and know that he could never fix them. He’d never look how he once looked, and he’d essentially done it to himself.

It ached. The potential with Keith and the fear of it twisted inside him. He wanted, wanted so badly and yet—

He couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine pulling his shirt up and off and letting someone see. Letting someone touch all that ruined skin.

On the bedside table his datapad pinged. Shiro reached for it to distract himself from the spiral of his own thoughts. He unlocked it with a swipe to see a message from Keith. _I had a nice time tonight,_ it read.

Shiro swallowed hard. He felt all at once dangerously fragile. Keith was good, so, so good. He’d been so brave, so strong to show his heart to Shiro, to wait for Shiro to get it. He was worth so much more than Shiro could give him.

But none of this was worth anything if Shiro wasn’t going to try. He made it through the Arena and the war for something, and even if he hadn’t known in the middle of it what that reason was, he knew it now. He’d felt it in his bones after Allura had put him back in his body. It was Keith, had always been Keith.

 _Can you come over?_ He typed it and sent it before he could think better of it. Maybe this was something that could wait for a better time, a more appropriate moment when Shiro wasn’t so close to his edge, but suddenly he didn’t want to wait.

He wanted Keith to touch him, he wanted Keith to accept him. He wanted—

Too many things.

 _On my way_ , was Keith’s response.

Shiro almost called the words back at that. Without question or delay, Keith had agreed. It made a lump in Shiro’s throat.

Their apartments weren’t far from each other, so just a few minutes later there was a knock on his door. Shiro shuffled to the door without bothering to turn the lights on.

“Hey,” Keith’s voice was soft. The tone dropped then. “Everything okay?”

In lieu of an answer, Shiro reached for Keith’s hand, pulling him inside. He walked them back to the bedroom and to the bed. They sat side by side in the dark, but Keith kept his hand in Shiro’s. Keith didn’t speak, but waited. Shiro loved him for it.

“I… I meant that earlier. All of it.” Love had been mentioned, but now the words felt too fraught to speak. Shiro needed to keep it together just a little bit longer. “But I’m… afraid.” He squeezed Keith’s hand only to feel Keith squeeze back.

The truth then. He could be brave for Keith. He could try.

“I was laying here thinking about you. About being with you. I— I’m not the person I was before Kerberos.” His back felt tight, hot. He could practically feel the scars pull at him. “I’m— in the Arena I had to do a lot of things to survive…”

He went on, word after word, each heavier than the last. He laid them all down in the dark, glad for its cover. He unrolled the pain of it, the shame, and let Keith see. Let Keith see every shameful, ugly part. There was nothing else for it, even as the tears dripped down his cheeks.

He spoke until his voice went hoarse, until he ran out of words. It was an hideous truth, a horrible confession. _I wanted it to hurt_ , he’d said, _because it was better than feeling nothing._

When he lapsed into silence, finished, Keith’s hand was still in his.

“Shiro,” Keith said with infinite tenderness, turning toward him.

Shiro collapsed at once into Keith’s warm arms. The sobs that followed were awful things that physically hurt to get out. Keith clung to him tight, hands wrapped as much as he could over Shiro’s back.

“Just let it out. I’ve got you.”

And Shiro did. Huge wracking cries that felt like they’d been living under his ribs for years. He gave them up, and Keith, steady and wonderful Keith, took them. He took them until they wound down to nothing but Shiro’s hard breathing.

“Breathe,” Keith said softly. His hand was rubbing across Shiro’s back as though he couldn’t feel the ripples of his ruined skin. “That was so brave Shiro. Thank you for telling me.”

Shiro took a deep breath and then another. He reached around and wiped at his eyes, swollen and sore.

“And it’s okay,” Keith went on, keeping that same mesmerizing hand on Shiro’s back. “No matter what you look like. I love you for who you are, Shiro, I always have. I— I know the war was hard. The Arena…” He cleared his throat. “You did what you had to do. You did what it took to get here,” his arms squeezed tight then and the next words were wobbily, “and that’s all I’m glad of. That you’re here. That you’re with me.”

Something choked its way out of Shiro’s mouth at that. He bent his head to drop a kiss on Keith’s shoulder. It ached inside his chest. Keith’s hand on his back smoothed up and back down.

“And—“ Keith sniffed, “You know you don’t have to show me, if you don’t want to. Or not right now. It’s… whatever you want, okay? I love you and that’s not conditional, it’s you, exactly as you are.”

Shiro took a deep breath, and something moved through him at Keith’s words. It felt almost like relief. The loss of that weight felt enormous. 

“I might need some time,” it was barely a whisper. He felt the shame try to rise.

“It’s no rush,” Keith said. His hands smoothed Shiro back down. Keith didn’t shy away from touching him even now. He never had, not with the arm, and not at the clone facility. Maybe there wasn’t anything that would scare him away.

Shiro was so, so lucky to have him.

“I love you,” Shiro said then, and this time the words didn't feel like a fracture. He knew if he pulled back and pressed his lips to Keith there wouldn’t be the ghost of fear behind it. He wouldn’t kiss Keith and then worry about what would come next.

Because it was Keith. Whatever it was they would handle it together. They always had.

That surety filled his chest now, taking up all the space that the shame had vacated. It felt good, right. It felt like the first step toward healing.

“And I love you,” Keith said.

**Author's Note:**

> Um. Sometimes you just have to sit down and write 1600 words of angst that makes you cry. Oops
> 
> I'm @an_aphorism on twitter.


End file.
